Sandy Hook Kin Calling on Starbucks to Ban Guns in Shops

In this 2012, a makeshift memorial is shown for Lauren Rousseau, a substitute teacher killed in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Family members of victims killed at Sandy Hook Elementary school on Dec. 14 are calling for Starbucks to ban guns within all of its coffee shops, according to a letter reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.

The family members plan to send the letter to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, asking him to consider changing the company’s firearms policy.

The letter was signed by 13 family members of Sandy Hook victims, including the parents and brothers of Lauren Rousseau, a teacher and Starbucks barrista killed during the Dec. 14 attack. Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, Sen. Chris Murphy, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Rep. Elizabeth Esty and other residents from Newtown also signed the letter.

The request from the families follows a confrontation on Aug. 9 between supporters of stricter gun laws and firearms rights advocates at a Starbucks in Newtown. The gun rights supporters went to the Starbucks to show appreciation for the company’s policy that allows people to carry guns in its coffee shops as long as it is allowed by state and local ordinances.

Starbucks eventually decided to close its Newtown coffee shop early that day.

“While we thank you for preventing gun carriers from senselessly inflicting further emotional trauma on our town by closing your Newtown location early last Friday, August 9th, we ask you this question: what about tomorrow and the day after that?” the letter said. “What do you say to your customers in Wyoming, Texas, and Florida; where guns have injured three innocent people at Starbucks in the past two years?”

“Some gun owners in this country cite Starbucks’ stance on this issue as justification of the reasonableness of their choice to carry guns anywhere and everywhere, even into a place as unthreatening as a coffee shop,” the letter said. “Your core customers are not such people; your core customers are people like us who have come to understand how guns jeopardize the stability of any environment. They are people who have come to understand that to prevent another Sandy Hook, we as a society must prioritize the sanctity of human life over the individual’s ‘right to carry.’”

“We welcome the opportunity to meet with the Newtown family members who have signed this letter to directly discuss their concerns,” said Zack Hutson, a Starbucks spokesman.

On Aug. 9, Chris Carr, the company’s executive vice president for U.S. retail said in a statement: “Starbucks did not endorse or sponsor the event. We continue to encourage customers and advocacy groups from all sides of the debate to contact their elected officials, who make the open carry laws that our company follows.”

“Our long-standing approach to this topic has been to comply with local laws and statutes in the communities we serve,” Mr. Carr said.